Couple of stories in the Chron regarding the construction of traffic circles on Washington Avenue, one in today’s paper and one in the This Week section. I noted this back in 2002, though as with many capital improvement projects in Houston, its genesis goes back much farther than that.
Today’s article gives some nice history of Washington Avenue, and somewhat to my surpirse, both pieces say that the circle at Westcott will soon be joined by others at Heights/Yale and Houston Avenue. I find this interesting, since the Washington/Westcott interchange is a complicated, multi-street, non-90-degree junction for which a circle would be a good fit, while the others are fairly normal intersections. I guess the one at Heights is close enough to Yale to incorporate that as well, but the one at Houston is run of the mill. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a little flair here, I’m just wondering what the advantage is, or if there is one.
Anyway. You can see more on the Westcott circle here, though you need IE to see their slideshow. If I get a chance, I’ll try to drive by and take a few pics myself.